Mysteries; or Glimpses of the Supernatural. By Charles Wyllys Elliott. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo.
The publication of this volume is timely. It goes over the whole field appropriated to oracles, astrology, dreams, demons, ghosts, spectres, and the like, with long chapters on the Salem Witchcraft, the Cock-lane Ghost, the Rochester Knockings and the Stratford Mysteries. The rules of evidence in relation to such marvels are also clearly stated. Mr. Elliott’s style is somewhat affected, but his information gives evidence of research, and the circulation of his book may produce good. Every thing which will tend in the slightest degree to scare away the late importations of vulgar vagabonds from the “spiritual world,” ironically so called, is worthy of patronage. We are not, of course, so audaciously incredulous as to doubt the reality of “the spirits,” but we sincerely hope that the Maine Liquor Law, in its most stringent provisions, may be applied to them; for such a set of unfleshed drivelers and disembodied nuisances never before attempted to convey to mortal ears the gossip of ghost-land.
A curious story is related in Mr. Elliott’s book, on the authority of Southey. We cannot forbear quoting it as an illustration of the way that John Bull experiences supernatural fear. “In 1702 Whiston predicted that the comet would appear on Wednesday, 14th October, at five minutes after five in the morning, and that the world would be destroyed by fire on the Friday following. His reputation was high, and the comet appeared. A number of persons got into boats and barges on the Thames, thinking the water the safest place. South Sea and India stock fell. A captain of a Dutch ship threw all his powder into the river, that the ship might not be endangered. At noon, after the comet had appeared, it is said that more than one hundred clergymen were ferried over to Lambeth, to request that proper prayers might be prepared, there being none in the church service. People believed that the day of judgment was at hand, and some acted on this belief, as if some temporary evil was to be expected. On Thursday more than 7,000 kept mistresses were publicly married. There was a prodigious run kept on the bank; Sir Gilbert Heathcote, at that time head director, issued orders to all the fire offices in London, requiring them to keep a good look-out, and have a particular eye on the Bank of England.” The run on the bank, and the orders of Sir Gilbert, in view of the world’s being destroyed by fire, are touches of practical humor, which the most daring humorist would hardly have ventured to imagine.
The Works of Shakspeare: the Text Carefully Restored according to the First Editions; with Introductions, Notes Original and Selected, and a Life of the Poet. By the Rev. H. N. Hudson, A. M. Boston: James Monroe & Co. Vol. 5, 12mo.
The present volume of Mr. Hudson’s beautiful edition of Shakspeare contains King Richard II., the first and second parts of Henry IV., and Henry V. The introductions, especially those to Henry IV., are probably the ablest of the editor’s many able disquisitions. The analysis of Prince Henry, Hotspur, Glendower, and, above all, Falstaffe, are in Mr. Hudson’s most matured style, both of thought and expression. They are positive additions to critical literature. No editor of Shakspeare, no critic of character, has ever approached the masterly dissection of Falstaffe given in this volume. The fat knight’s great intellect has perfect justice done to it, while his humor is richly set forth. Mr. Hudson says very finely of him, that he has “all the intellectual qualities that enter into the composition of practical wisdom, without one of the moral.” Of his sensuality, it is remarked: “The animal susceptibilities of our nature are in him carried up to their highest pitch, and his several appetites hug their respective objects with exquisite gust. Moreover, his speech borrows additional flavor and effect from the thick foldings of flesh which it oozes through; therefore he glories in his much flesh, and cherishes it as being the procreant cradle of jests; if he be fat, it enables his tongue to drop fatness; and in the chambers of his brain all the pleasurable agitations that pervade the structure below are curiously wrought into mental delectation. With how keen and inexhaustible a relish does he pour down sack, as if he tasted it all over and through his body to the ends of his fingers and toes! Yet who does not see that he has far more pleasure in discoursing about it than in drinking it? And so it is through all the particulars of his enormous sensuality. And he makes the same use of his vices and infirmities; nay, he often exaggerates and caricatures those he has, and sometimes affects those he has not, that he may suck the same profit from them.”
The Book of Snobs. By William M. Thackeray. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 18mo.
These biting and brilliant squibs were originally published in Punch. In their collected form they will take their place among the most characteristic of Thackeray’s works. This volume, in short, contains the philosophy of Snobbism, as Vanity Fair and Pendennis contain its illustrations in life. But while these sketches are philosophical, the philosophy teaches by example. We have city snobs—military, clerical and literary snobs—party-giving, dinner-giving, dining-out snobs—whig snobs, tory snobs, radical snobs—snobs in the country and snobs on the continent—university snobs, club snobs, and regal snobs. The result is that the author, in snobbing the race, at last becomes almost a snob himself—as it was said of Mr. Brownson, that he was so much of a protestant that he protested himself out of protestantism. Thackeray’s definition of a snob is “he who meanly admires mean things.”
The “Snob Royal” is one of the best essays in the volume. “In a country,” says Thackeray, “where snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, cannot be unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to admiration. For instance, James I. was a snob, and a Scotch snob; than which the world contains no more offensive creature. He appears not to have had one of the good qualities of a man—neither courage, nor generosity, nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great divines and doctors of England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not a snob; while Louis XIV., his old square-toes of a contemporary—the great worshiper of big-wiggery—has always struck me as a most undoubted and royal snob.” In George the Fourth he also finds a regal snob. “With the same humility with which the footmen at the King’s Arms gave way before the Plush Royal, the aristocracy of the English nation bent down and truckled before Georgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it’s a wonder to think what is the gentlefolks opinion of a gentleman when they gave Georgius such a title.”